Mobile Environment Growth
To say that the use of mobile
applications is booming would be an obvious understatement. In 2010, mobile
application stores recorded an estimated $6.2 billion in overall sales,
including $4.5 billion in application
downloads. By 2013, some analysts expect mobile application revenues to exceed
$21 billion. As Figure 1 indicates, mobile devices are already the most
commonly owned technological devices in the world. There are 3.3 billion mobile
subscribers in the world, as opposed to 1.5 billion televisions, 1.4 billion credit cards, 1.3
billion land line telephones, 0.9 billion personal computers, and 0.8 billion
cars.
There are currently 3.75 billion
unique mobile subscriptions worldwide, and 1.45 billion mobile subscribers have
a second or third mobile subscription. This makes for a total of 5.2 billion
mobile subscriptions worldwide. In 2010, mobile voice calls grew by about 2%
(to $625 billion), while mobile data accounts grew by about 17% (to $295
billion).
For everybody who uses a Smartphone
or tablet apps are indispensible. An app is an application that is developed
for a specific environment. Within the mobile context, the commonly used name
is mobile app. App technology has been well known since the commercial launch
of the iPhone in 2007. With the release of the Apple App Store, a new sales
channel for software applications was opened. Comparable app stores for other operating
systems, such as Android Market, Nokia Store, BlackBerry App
World, Mac App Store, Samsung Apps,
and Windows Phone Marketplace were launched soon afterwards. For a long time,
only apps for personal use were in the spotlight, but now this has changed. The
usage of apps for business purposes is increasing
significantly. Companies are using
apps for banking, sales, marketing, or internal communication. In addition, B2B
or enterprise apps, which facilitate interaction with back end tools and mobile
devices by means of web services or cloud platforms, are capturing market
share. In the course of this development, the demand for methodical quality
management is increasing.
Where are we today?
It is estimated that six billion
people are already using mobile phones. A graphical analysis given below on
this growth trend actually shows us the alarming speed at which mobile users
grew over the last five years. The world is moving faster than ever towards
minimized gadgets. Smartphone user statistics are rewritten almost every week.
No one is able to effectively predict the total number of Smartphones flooding
into the market. All expectations and predictions are broken when it comes to Smartphone
users and Smartphone applications. Every day, millions of users depend on their
mobile browser to update themselves with current happenings, mail services,
social networks, etc. This major turn of events, in which people are slowly
stepping away from their laptops or computers and getting more addicted to
their handheld devices, leaves us with a large window of opportunity to
explore. Everyone is exploring the option to drive their world from their
fingertips. Applications are being loaded into the app stores of leading mobile
operating providers at a speed which is beyond our imagination. Every day, each
user wakes up to the war between the Smartphone companies trying to deliver the
best to the end user.
Mobile Apps – An Evolution driven by end users
Will the way in which developers
build mobile apps today remain the same a few years, months or even weeks from
now? Probably not.
Countless new apps are being
launched daily, and the features and technicalities of these new applications
are what analysts tend to work on. However, what most of them fail to recognize
is that end user behaviors drive this evolution. In fact, the user experience
will be the driving force of change in the way mobile apps are developed in the
coming years.
“The report, written by analysts Jeffrey Hammond and Julie Ask, explains how modern mobile applications will evolve over the next few years and what development teams should prepare for now.
If you’re a developer looking to build modern applications that will deliver contextual customer experiences, there are UI changes coming that you will need to understand.
But think about what’s going to happen when they have to be
able to see the road or make sure that they don’t trip and fall while they’re
getting cues from these applications.
The possible UI changes developers should be aware of:
Peripheral interaction
Currently, app developers and mobile
advertisers thrive off the ability to fully engage users in an app. This will
make the change from a fully engrossed app experience, to a more peripheral
interaction, difficult for developers to adjust to
Multiple Modes of Input
“UIs are going to change focus from
touch to voice, according to the report. ‘When you strap that device onto your
arm (before a run, for example), you’re not going to look at it anymore until
you’re done with your run. Voice takes over,’ Hammond said. ‘Also, when you’ve
got applications that are in the car, the natural mode also shifts to voice.
But you don’t only want to have voice because, if you’ve got an application and
you’re in a crowded restaurant, you’re going to want to shift back to touch. So
developers have got to be able to essentially support multiple modes of input.’
Hammond said that developers need to
even understand which mode is going to be the preferred mode. He said there’s
no reason for developers to not take advantage of the microphone that detects
ambient sound and say, ‘Oh, well, with the decibels here, I can’t really
understand voice input so I’m going to automatically shift to text input or
touch input instead.’”
Wearable and Connectable
“Wearable and connectable are
definitely coming in the near future, the report said. ‘I don’t know if you’ve
seen some of the prototypes that have been shown around on batteries that are
flexible,’ Hammond said. ‘So you can conceivably have a battery woven into your
jacket and be charging your cell phone all day long with a 10-ounce, flexible
battery that’s in the back panel of your jacket. Or imagine shoes that can
generate power while you’re walking around. If you’ve got that battery panel
hooked up to little power generators in your shoes and you go for a 40-minute
run, you’ve just generated enough power to power your cell phone for the rest
of the day."
Form Factor
“There’s also no reason we can’t see
these mobile devices change pretty radically in form factor, Hammond said. ‘Why
do you have to have the 4-inch device up by the side of your face?’ he asked.
‘If you have a pair of glasses on, who’s to say you can’t have a brick sitting
in your briefcase or your attaché that’s doing most of the processing and the
glasses are essentially the local dumb terminal, if you will. It’s kind of like
the fifth generation down from a 3270 terminal.’ Hammond said that by 2014,
those types of glasses will definitely be available.”
If your thinking “sure… this won’t
happen for years”, think again, or rather do some research. There are
prototypes of devices encompassing these features out being tested at
this very moment. It won’t be long till developers are changing their app dev
processes to fit a vastly different interface. Luckily, there are great mobile
app quality and testing tools out there to
test for inconsistencies, which tend much more prevalent when you’re developing
for an new interface or device for the first time.
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